HarSMedia

placard : la générale

august 14, 2006.

the red doorThe - by now we may call it 'traditional' - 72 hours non-stop parisian 'grand placard', part of this year's, the ninth, international headphone festival, took place from friday afternoon august 4th till monday afternoon august 7th, at La Générale, in the rue du général Lasalle, in Belleville. An absolutely unique, highly eclectic, event, both socially and musically. As I had to take care of G. these days, unfortunately I could attend only few of the many, many live contributions in the fine Belleville 'art squat', though I did manage to catch much of it on the 24/24 live ogg vorbis stream ...

Noisy, exciting, nice, drony, fascinating, clumsy ... at some times only one of such labels applied; at other times all of them ensemble; or maybe other adjectives would be more appropriate to describe the sounds emitted ... but most of it was at the very least fun to hear, though often when listening to the stream it was not easy to actually know who it was_or_were, that were_or_was making those particular sounds at that particular moment. Of course there was the online schedule, but there were - as always - quite some last-minute changes ... and delays ... But for who really wanted to know, usually - but not always - the correct information was to be had on the placard irc chat channel (which, btw, was continuously being projected on the wall behind the placard performers).

lagenerale_placard match_vide 2
match_vide 3 match_vide 4


Extra this year: an impressive 'vinyl cutting corner', where Jan Zimmermann sat cutting large portions of the placard's sessions directly onto solid 7 inch vinyl platters. And thanks to Jan's efforts I now indeed possess a heavy black vinyl 'single' with a craft fully mastered recording of part of the 'Prime Time' session I did with FlexRex and Rébus on saturday evening, under the flag of ana-R, between 20h30 and 21h30.

ana-R vinyl ana-R vinyl


prime time Bridging an intro and an outro featuring Rébus's Star Academy Dancing Carpet, and with me on my end of the table using nothing but an electric guitar passing through a cheap digital fuzz-box and with a mechanical metronome placed over the strings on the down end of its fretboard, swinging and beating at its lowest possible tempo, we did a nicely balanced and evolving set, which I enjoyed a lot.

The next day, on sunday afternoon, each of us three did a second placard intervention. After half an hour of FlexRex, and half an hour of Rébus, I started at around 15h30, again working with minimal 'material'. I had an old monophonic cassette player playing back one of the Cosmodrone drone-loop 're-cycle' cassettes made earlier this year by Flex and Cosmo, and (using the reverse knob of my SONY TCM 500DV) on top of this I looped 'by hand' at lowest possible speed notes and short phrases from Wagner opera overtures on a cassette that I found in the gutter of the avenue Galieni in Bagnolet earlier this year (found tape #279).

The result was a pretty solemn lo-fi, yeah indeed, vodcast but I found it just the thing for the sunny-outside/twilight-inside quiet of this "48 done, another 24 to go" - placard afternoon ... After about twenty five minutes I was joined by fpcm, who was streaming live from his flat in Amsterdam, then picked up by me in Paris on wifi, and fed from a laptop into the placard stream. The two streams together thus merged into one, e-merging as an ookoi space stretched set.


The following two YouTube clips each give you a 10 minute extract from the ookoi Placard stream...



{ added august 19th, 2006 : There is was a nice 20 minute documentary video of the La Générale placard on Bastien's public-access.org site [ added august 2009 : but site and files are no longer ,] available for viewing and download. The film is built around an interview with the Placard festival's initiator Erik Minkkinen, who is talking at length about Placard's history and philosophy; there's great footage of Jan Zimmermann's vinyl cutting installation, and among the fragments of performances you'll encounter parts of the ana-R Prime Time show, prominently featuring, of course :-) , the Star Academy Dancing Carpet ... You may also view it at YouTube's :]

{ added april 12th, 2018 : Video no longer available. }

{ added august 10th, 2019 : Happy to find that the full original 'public-access.org' page including the video was saved and kept by the WayBackMachine. It has some very nice footage of our —Rébus, FlexRex, myself— playing on Sunday ... }

The following are a few of stills from the ana-R footage in Bastien's video, which, as far as I am aware, is the very best document/account made on what was 'Le Placard' ...








About the Placard international Headphone Festival on the SoundBlog:

(january 30, 2021) - assemble/dissemble (Antivirus 101 Placard)
(september 14, 2019) - A brief history of Le Placard (1998-...)
(august 11, 2019) - Vive Le Placard ! Varia ...
|→ (august 04, 2012) - 72 Hours of Post-Nuclear Survival
|→ (august 08, 2009) - (Le) CLeUb, Placard, CLeUb
(february 12, 2008) - Karlheinz's Song of Praise
(november 28, 2007) - Placardée l'Agence XP
(november 05, 2006) - Cellarlar Heroes
(october 20, 2006) - Funky Shit!
|→ (august 14, 2006) - placard : la générale
(july 30, 2006) - "le zida ne passera pas par moi..."
(july 07, 2006) - de_'tails of lite house keeping'
|→ (july 27, 2005) - tafelmuziek: placard & cd
(july 31, 2005) - tafelmuziek: paradiso placard
(june 18, 2005) - zandoog placard & cd
(december 31, 2004) - soundinjury placard
(may 31, 2004) - old bears new tricks
(may 13, 2004) - tafelmuziek placard
(july 13, 2003) - gaité lyrique
(june 20, 2003) - live chronicles



SoundBlog entries around and about La Générale Nord-Est:

(2024, march 9) - Orlando & Artaud wed bound at La Générale, even
(2022, september 2) - Three Musketeers Musicking Maastricht & La Générale
(2022, july 2) - X-unPub
(2021, june 13) - Die Stillgestandenen (The Stillstands / Standstills / Stillstanders)
(2021, february 21) - Lento (slowly)
(2018, september 01) - t'Obsolete or not t'Obsolete ... [part iv]
(2018, august 13) - Rage, rafts & refugees
(2018, august 10) - t'Obsolete or not t'Obsolete ... [part iii]
(2018, july 21) - t'Obsolete or not t'Obsolete... [part ii]
(2018, april 10) - La Générale Nord-Est (PAMP18-1)
(2017, august 19) - t'Obsolete or not t'Obsolete ... [part i]
(2016, august 04) - Nicolas Collins - 2 April 2016, La Générale
(2015, july 15) - Bridges, troubles, water - unPublic #19
(2014, april 08) - La physicalité du son. Tome 1.
(2013, december 13) - Candles, Cassettes & Champagne - unPublic #4
(2010, december 29) - Obsolescence
(2010, august 14) - "And what about Yi Sang?" (ì´ìƒ à Paris [iv])
(2010, june 29) - Ceremonies (Yi Sang ì´ìƒ à Paris [iii])
(2010, june 25) - Read me a poem, Yi Sang! (Yi Sang ì´ìƒ à Paris [ii])
(2010, june 13) - Yi Sang ì´ìƒ à Paris [i]
(2010, january 13) - Art fleas (puces de l'art)
(2009, july 20) - General Acoustics
(2006, august 14) - placard : la générale (Belleville)



Read about the ookoi elsewhere:
ANNUAL, 1, december 2023 (Korm Plastics) - Green-tainted hyperbole, quailish quirks and summer-flies. The inscrutable genius of the ookoi.
eContact! 21.2, july 2023 - Towards an Unhearable Music. Conceptualism in the ookoi's art.
Gonzo #88, september/october 2008 - Zelfcomponerende Klankstukken

Read about the ookoi and Raudio and Stduio on the SoundBlog:
(2023, december 31) - d.ookoi writes b.ookoi (ii) - A Year in the Rear (2023)
(2023, december 16+) - Awesome Foursomes (xi) - No. 178
(2023, december 16+) - Awesome Foursomes (x) - No. 789
(2023, december 16+) - Awesome Foursomes (ix) - No. 329
(2023, august 20) - Three days of residency at Les Ateliers Claus, Brussels
(2022, april 25) - Awesome Foursomes (viii) - No. 664
(2022, march 31) - Awesome Foursomes (vii) - No. 138
(2022, february 20) - Awesome Foursomes (vi) - No. 419
(2021, november 01) - Awesome Foursomes (v) - No. 954
(2021, august 20) - Awesome Foursomes (iv) - No. 793
(2021, july 18) - Awesome Foursomes (iii) - No. 562
(2021, july 09) - Awesome Foursomes (ii)- No. 284
(2021, june 21) - Awesome Foursomes (i) - No. 019
(2021, may 31) - d.ookoi writes b.ookoi (i)
(2020, january 26) - STDUIO Arti: aLife @Hal-fIve
(2020, january 25) - STDUIO Arti: The Lâ’¶st Weekend
(2019, march 03) - ookoi 2.0: the remake of a spect[r]al b[r]and
(2017, april 12) - 1024
(2015, march 07) - The men once in green are now writing a book!
(2014, may 09) - You are NOT Hier!
(2013, july 03) - How to keep devils away
(2013, may 06) - Next Numbr!
(2012, june 24) - Ninja Fruit Plus Instruments
(2012, may 06) - Y.3 = Yltra !
(2012, may 06) - Our final gig / Ons laatste optreden
(2010, may 23) - 'Raise the trumpet, sound the drum'
(2010, april 02) - [Second Life and WudyWudy]
(2010, january 05) - ookoi: onderood
(2009, november 17) - Soli Deo Gloria !
(2009, october 10) - Project Icarus OST
(2009, august 24) - ookoi ShakeNRoll
(2009, july 18) - Pure . Reactive . Music . Hack Day
(2009, april 07) - "Blood and Bottom" (Raudi0GaGa)
(2009, february 21) - Insular arithmetic (ookoi toont)
(2009, january 31) - A glimpse of Heesbeen
(2009, january 15) - Rien à voir
(2008, october 02) - The right to be slow
(2008, june 06) - Raudio Graffiti: almost live !
(2008, february 24) - The Great Washing
(2007, december 04) - I'm an island
(2007, november 20) - Live Beyond the Paradiso, Amsterdam
(2007, september 04) - leve ookoi! (3)
(2007, august 22) - leve ookoi! (2)
(2007, august 12) - leve ookoi! (1)
(2007, april 12) - Back to Berlin [Raudio 11/15]
(2007, march 24) - Vicky, Killers and Avatars
(2007, february 15) - Every presentation is a premiere
(2007, january 25) - 1024 Waarden, by ookoi
(2007, january 19) - Preparations for a Second Life
(2006, november 05) - Cellarlar Heroes
(2006, october 20) - Funky shit
(2006, august 14) - placard : la générale
(2006, july 07) - de-'tails of lite house keeping'
(2006, may 06) - jam karet?
(2006, april 04) - 100+ new (r)audio philes ... [3] [Raudio 07]
(2006, march 20) - raudio @cosman's
(2006, march 12) - 100+ new (r)audio philes ... [2] [Raudio 07]
(2006, march 03) - 100+ new (r)audio philes ... [1] [Raudio 07]
(2005, october 12) - Raudio #06 [Raudio 06]
(2005, september 25) - 0 OK, 0:1, life on ze road
(2005, july 31) - Outside - Inside Paradiso
(2005, june 18) - Sand-Y da-Y #5-7 [Raudio 05]
(2005, june 05) - Sand-Y :: da-Y #04 - da birds
(2005, may 26-24) - Sand-Y :: da-Y #03, #02, #01 - Crew cut ; "The truth is out here" ; ::
(2005, may 14) - 9 Beet Stretch [Raudio Special]
(2005, march 31) - Raudio #04 :: "GespRek 1982-2005" [Raudio 04]
(2005, february 10) - raudio #3 (drie/three) [Raudio 03]
(2004, december 08) - pure sound [Raudio 02]
(2004, november 24) - other, and good news! [Raudio 01]
(2004, october 10) - raudio launched
(2004, september 24) - made in ameland
(2004, june 09) - boyzz buzz # listen!global corpus
(2004, may 20-31) - >∞-îl_o_tré

Read some of the ookoi's papers in pdf:
(2014) - Localized Sounds, Sounding Locations.
Presented at the International Symposium "Locative Media and Sound Art", Kortrijk (be)
(2007) - ookoi - Uptime Publishing Demonstration. (With Jay Needham.)

ookoi - The works:
(2015—now) :: writing b.ookoi: pick a number!
(2017) Weekly, 10'24" :: ookoi dooki podcast
(2014) HIER - iPhone app, 4 track album of localized Future Popp
(2013) Y ¬ Y.1024 (HTML5 web app)
(2013) Wandelzand - iPhone app, soundwalk for the Dutch isle of Ameland
(2012) Palm Top Theatre V2
(2010) WudyWudy, machina movie, filmed in Second Life by Evo Szuyuan (trailer)
(2009) ookoi_@_E@rport, Amsterdam - channel 19 of the RAUDIO IIIII streaming audio art iThing app
(2009) ShakeNRoll, Project Icarus OST - scenes for the RJDJ reactive music iPhone platform
(2009) iRingg®, iPhone ringtones
(2009) 2525 (video)
(2008) L'Ecoute - public space screen video
(2008) Jam Karet I & Jam Karet IV - pocket movies
(2007) Live beyond the Paradiso (USB-stick data-dump)
(2007) Leve ookoi! - channel 16 of the RAUDIO IIIII streaming audio art iThing app
(2007) 1024 (DVD)
(2007) 1024 Waarden - flash animation
(2006) "Roam Stroam" - channel 12 of the RAUDIO IIIII streaming audio art iThing app
(2006) Tijdrekken - flash animation
(2005) Sand-Y (Zandoog) - channel 7 of the RAUDIO IIIII streaming audio art iThing app
(2004) Muziektafel-Tafelmuziek (CD)
...
(1980) Signs and Symptoms


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